"And what is said between the lines?" Daniela takes off her shoes, pushes back the seat, and puts up her bare feet, which reach almost to the windshield.
"Between the lines and in the lines. Death, destruction, exile, punishment, more punishment, devastation, plague, and famine. Starving people eating their babies. It's true that sometimes, amid those horrible passages of rebuke phrased in such flowery language, an implausible snatch of consolation will creep in, something utopian and grandiose. Conditional consolation, annoying consolation, because it all comes down to the fire normally aimed at the people of Israel being redirected toward other nations. As if there can never be in this world a minute of genuine peace, and the axe always falls on someone.
"And this we have drunk in with our mother's milk, we've been fed it like baby food. So it's no wonder that we're all set for the next destruction that will come, yes, speedily in our own time, maybe even yearning for it, look, it's already right here, we've been hearing about it, we've read it word for word in wonderful language."
The dirt road is well packed. The Land Rover's tires ride as smoothly as if it were asphalt. The haze blurs the sunlight. The visitor takes off her sunglasses and studies the large man who so enjoys having an attentive audience for his fervid obsessions.
"You would also lecture my poor sister about all these theories?"
"Not much, because I didn't want to burden her with more gloom and doom. And soon enough reading the Bible began to nauseate me. But before I finally abandoned the book to gather dust on the shelf, I shared my thoughts with Rafaeli, the deputy director-general, and to his credit I must say he listened with great patience, like a therapist with his client, and didn't try to argue with me, but merely recommended that I drop the prophets and move on to Ecclesiastes and Proverbs, and I said to myself, Fine, let's give the Bible one more chance. So I went to the Scrolls, and it was actually in the Song of Songs that Eyal's death suddenly overwhelmed me, and I read this poetry drowning in tears."
"Death in the Song of Songs?" his sister-in-law asks with a gasp.
"Because the beauty overwhelmed me. The love… the wondrous eroticism, the descriptions of nature. And then it hit me hard what Eyal would never be able to enjoy."
"And you never returned to the Bible?"
"Never touched it again. I cut myself off from it along with all the other useless texts."
Instinctively she presses the book to her chest and looks up at a vulture perched on a treetop, spreading its broad wings.
"Did you also read Jeremiah?"
"Of course. After all, I am his namesake, tied to him from birth. And I quickly caught on that he was the sickest and most dangerous of all the prophets. An unstable man. Exasperating. Jumping from topic to topic. A professional grouch. A low-rent strategist. Don't be misled by the beautiful language, the pretty words, the metaphors and similes, the rhythm of the sentences. All these only interfere with hearing what actually lies behind them. Now, with the English translation in your hand, you can uncover all the violence and despair. And indeed if you translate it back into Hebrew, into real everyday language, the hatred and extremism will appear from behind the feathers of the peacock's tail. Try it… why not? Here's an exercise for a teacher of English. You wanted to test your vocabulary? By all means, give yourself an exam."
How strange and special, thinks Daniela. Two grown people dealing with the Bible in the middle of the African plain. I came all the way from Israel to Tanzania to translate the Bible back into Hebrew.
She opens the book, finds Jeremiah, and says, maybe I'll read it first in English. No, he says, the English will get fancy and lure you with linguistic decorations. Translate it spontaneously, a page at random, but into simple Hebrew, please, Hebrew that your children can understand.
She translates slowly, pressing her finger to the page, attempting to make herself heard over the wind that has started to howl.
"Therefore said God, the Lord of the regiments, Lord of Hosts… God of Armies. Because you say this word, then see, I'm going to turn my words in your mouth into fire, and this people into wood, and it will gobble them up. You'll see, I'll bring a nation against you from far away, O House of Israel, says God, and it's a strong nation, an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know, and you won't understand what they say. Their quiver of arrows is like an open grave, they are all violent men. And they will eat up your harvest and your bread, and eat your sons and daughters, and eat your sheep and cattle, and eat up your grapes and fig trees, and with their sword they will ruin your fortified cities, which you depend on for safety. And yet, at this time, God says, I will not put an end to you. And if they ask, Why does our God do all these things to us? Then you tell them, just as you left me and served strange gods in your own land, so you will also serve foreigners in a land that is not yours."
"Oof, enough." She closes the book and puts it in the glove compartment. But Yirmiyahu is delighted by her translation.
"You see? Just a random passage, and the violence is immediately revealed. A prophecy of destruction, with relish. Disaster and death and cannibalism, and suddenly, this is typical, he panics at his own prophecy, and says, Wait, for all that, it won't be the end. But why shouldn't it be? If their sins are so great, why not finish them off once and for all? Very simple, because then there won't be anyone to prophesy to; he'll have no one to torture with his curses. He will be unemployed. And why is the foreign nation entitled to such a great victory? The simple answer: jealousy and control. Not justice, only betrayal. You worshipped other gods, so you deserve that your sons and your daughters be eaten."
Daniela feels drained. The journey is not over, and Yirmi's driving has become slow and distracted. The haze in the air is turning into a yellow fog. The ancient prophet is wearing her out with his hatreds, and the philosophizing driver with his complaints.
"But there is one marvelous passage there," Yirmi goes on, riding the crest of his speech, "in chapter forty-something there's a section in the prophecies of Jeremiah that the editor needed a lot of courage to include. The exiles in Egypt rise in protest against the prophet, who has also ended up there, and they dare to tell him to his face: 'Enough, we've heard everything you said, and we have no intention of obeying you. It's good and pleasant for us to burn incense to the goddess — who is called by a unique name, the Queen of Heaven.' The men and husbands suddenly come to the defense of their wives who burn the incense, and say to the infuriating prophet plain and simple, 'Enough, that's it, we will keep doing the pagan ritual, because when we and our wives served this Queen in Jerusalem, we were happy, we had plenty of food.' The main thing — and this is the line I find so touching — they say to Jeremiah, listen to this: 'In Jerusalem, without all your admonitions, we were good, we felt we were good, but as soon as we started listening to you and stopped burning incense for the Queen of Heaven, we lost everything, and then came the sword and the famine.' Do you hear me? You hear?"